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Utah Delegates Oust Three-Term G.O.P. Senator From Race

SALT LAKE CITY — Senator Robert F. Bennett, an 18-year veteran Republican who had been seeking a fourth term, was stripped of his party’s nomination on Saturday at the state convention here, becoming one of the first Congressional victims of the surging discontent from the Tea Party-infused Republican right.

Mr. Bennett, 76, was outmatched in delegate votes by two relative newcomers despite an enthusiastic endorsement from Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and local Utah hero, and a political pedigree of deep Mormon roots and public service.

“You know his principles,” Mr. Romney said to the roughly 3,500 delegates. “We need Bob Bennett’s skill and loyalty and intellect and power.”

Mr. Bennett himself, in his final appeal from the dais, said the stakes in Washington were simply too high to take a chance on the unknown. “Keep the veteran on the floor when you’re playing a championship game,” he urged the delegates.

“Our anything-but-Bennett bond is strong,” said William Lee, the field director for the Lee campaign. William Lee, who is not related to Mike Lee, said some delegates were pledged to switch to Mr. Lee or Mr. Bridgewater to keep Mr. Bennett from qualifying for the primary election on June 22, where Mr. Bennett’s advantages in name recognition and fund-raising could be decisive.

The Senate seat is not expected to change party hands in November, as Utah has not had a senator from the Democratic Party since the 1970s.

Photo

Senator Robert F. Bennett leaving the stage at the Republican Party’s state convention in Salt Lake City on Saturday.Credit
Steve C. Wilson/Associated Press

The convention functioned rather like the television show “Survivor” — sudden death for the candidate voted off the island.

All but the top three candidates were eliminated in the first round of voting. Delegates then whittled the field again — that was where Mr. Bennett lost, coming in third with about 27 percent delegate support. A final round of voting was inconclusive. Neither candidate captured the 60 percent required to clinch the nomination, so Mr. Lee and Mr. Bridgewater will face off in the primary.

In a brief news conference after the vote, Mr. Bennett thanked his staff, but he declined to make an endorsement in the Senate race and took no questions.

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Questions of risk and reward hung over the convention. Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican regarded by many conservatives as a kind of a savior after years under Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. — a social moderate who resigned last year to become ambassador to China — stayed on the sidelines. Mr. Herbert is facing his first run for a full term this fall.

But Mr. Romney’s backing of Mr. Bennett was not likely to hurt him, delegates said. Mr. Romney, who is expected to seek the Republican presidential nomination again in 2012, is hugely popular here, where he led the 2002 Winter Olympics and raised lots of money for his 2008 campaign.

In the nexus of politics and religion that defines Utah races, Mr. Bennett’s résumé was never in question. His grandfather was a president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his father, Wallace F. Bennett, was a senator from 1951 to 1974.

But some recent votes and positions — including his vote for the Toxic Asset Relief Program and support for a bipartisan health care bill — hurt him with many delegates and speech-makers, for whom a hearty bashing of “Obamacare” and bank bailouts were guaranteed applause lines.

One delegate who supported Mr. Bennett, Shem Liechty, an engineer, said the chorus against Mr. Bennett was so strong that he believed people were not looking closely enough at who, or what, might come next.

“I said, ‘Figure it out,’ ” he said. “You might not want any of them.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 9, 2010, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Utah Delegates Oust Three-Term G.O.P. Senator From Fall Race. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe